SAN FRANCISCO — It’s the query that can maintain Stephen Curry up at evening this summer time.
“It’s the nice ‘What if?’” Curry pondered Thursday morning inside the Warriors’ dwelling enviornment, the place the one indicators of life had been the WNBA’s Valkyries preparing for his or her season opener. The Warriors’ season got here to an finish Wednesday evening with Curry unable to do something however watch.
“It’s tough, man. That’s a first for me,” Curry stated, reflecting on his powerless vantage level for the ultimate 4 video games — all losses — after he strained his left hamstring within the first half of Recreation 1 towards the Minnesota Timberwolves, who superior to the Western Convention Finals with a 121-110 win.
“To sit on the sidelines, it’s weird,” he continued. “You want you had been on the market to have the ability to do one thing about it. Nevertheless it simply wasn’t within the playing cards this 12 months. … All we wished was an opportunity, and to complete the 12 months like we did, to sneak within the Playoffs and win that first spherical, there’s loads to be happy with for certain, contemplating the place we had been.
“But definitely disappointed, and frankly just sad that I wasn’t out there able to play.”
With out their main offensive weapon, the Warriors merely ran out of firepower towards the Timberwolves, who received not less than 20 factors from each Anthony Edwards and Julius Randle in 4 of the sequence’ 5 video games and had been held under 100 simply as soon as — within the Warriors’ solely win.
Curry’s absence, significantly for the do-or-die Recreation 5, and the Warriors’ incapability to eke out one win with out him on the courtroom was made all extra excruciating by how shut he was to returning. If Golden State may have compelled a Recreation 6, Curry would have had three additional days earlier than what would have been a house sport Sunday.
“Everything was kind of aligned for Game 6,” he stated. “I had some testing to do, and who knows how that would have went because I haven’t gone live since Game 1. First time dealing with this injury. I was pretty optimistic, but there were a couple more checkpoints to get through.”
It was a blended bag of feelings contained in the Invoice King media room because the Warriors processed the ending of their season. On the one hand, they completed Curry’s acknowledged motive of taking part in “meaningful” basketball. They performed deeper into the postseason than anybody may have envisioned earlier than the acquisition of Jimmy Butler III. On the opposite, a second-round exit fell wanting what they felt was doable with the trio of Curry, Butler and Draymond Inexperienced.
The Warriors began 12-3, then misplaced 12 of their subsequent 15 video games. They had been teetering across the tenth seed and the potential of the play-in — or lacking the postseason completely — earlier than the commerce deadline. However after they had been eradicated with well being stopping Butler from taking part in as much as his full potential and Curry from taking part in in any respect, Kerr was clear concerning the potential he noticed within the group.
With a wholesome Curry, Kerr stated, “I know we had a shot. I know we could’ve gone the distance.”
The group completed the common season 23-7 earlier than their well being caught as much as them, and Curry echoed an analogous sentiment.
“That’s the story you’re going to tell yourself when you lay your head down on the pillow every night for the next couple weeks until whoever wins the championship because that’s the belief that we did have,” he stated. “We’ll imagine and believe that we could have won everything had we been healthy. But you move on.”
Looking forward to the summer time and subsequent season, Curry and Inexperienced each famous that the midseason addition of Butler provides them way more readability than they’d heading into this season, after they had been rumored to be concerned with any potential working mate for Curry that grew to become obtainable.
The main target for Curry, who doesn’t have an Olympic dedication to keep up, shall be to relaxation and get well. For basic supervisor Mike Dunleavy and the entrance workplace, the offseason shall be centered round tweaks to the core trio’s supporting solid.
When wholesome, Curry, Butler and Inexperienced confirmed what they had been able to over the ultimate 30 video games of the common season.
“When September rolls around and there’s 29 teams that ended their year disappointed in some way, shape or form who are excited about making a charge like we want to be as confident as possible coming into next year, and I think that window … that meant something,” Curry stated. “That was actual.
“I got hurt in Game 1; obviously that changed a lot. But we have a lot to be, again, proud of and a lot to build off of for next year.”
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Initially Printed: Might 15, 2025 at 1:09 PM PDT
